More involved than just your personal association with whatever arbitrary and undefined racial name you call yourself, the Other Awareness Project is a thought-provoking, humorous mixture of film documentary, stand-up comedy, and audience discussion that looks into what I think is the continued incorrect categorization of people into racial groups by skin color and other arbitrary things, in light of everything we know scientifically, legally, religiously, just about any way you want to look at it. In this era of keeping it real", internet access, DNA research, why do intelligent people still classify themselves into racial groups? And, is it helping to solve any problems?

Although we touch upon a wide variety of topics, the project isn't focused on racism or past wrongdoings, real or perceived. It's more focused on today and tomorrow, and helping to discover what is the best plan going forward that everyone can support. A secondary purpose is to see if there are people who can live without calling themselves or anyone else, any of the legally undefined and arbitrary labels. "What is the continued value of using these words to try and solve any problems?"

I traveled to various cities around the country. (Long Beach, CA; Austin, TX; Portland, OR; Cypress, CA; Carson, CA; Youngstown, OH) I was intentionally looking to film conversations with people I didn't know and who are more intelligent than I am. People, who have been calling themselves any of the completely arbitrary and legally undefined racial categories for 10, 20, 30, 40 years. To see why they still chose a "racial" category, how they support that decision, and how it has or hasn't affected their lives. Everyone answered the same roughly 20 questions, from Who is Al Sharpton?" to Where is Caucasia? to "What is the legal description of a _____ person in the United States?" To their credit, not one person knew the questions until we were filming. I didnt prep any of the responses. The conversations are exactly as they happened with as little editing as possible. Highlights include speaking with Marc Dann, Attorney General for the state of Ohio. Jim Dear, Mayor of Carson, CA, Dr. Joseph Graves Jr., Professor of Biology at NC A&T University, and Rabbi Brian Zachary Meyer Los Angeles. All in all, more than 15 one-hour interviews with people who had no real obligation to talk with me.

The purpose of the filming was to show: 1) It really isn't that hard to talk with people of different "racial" groups. Anywhere! 2) That the conversation doesn't have to be angry and can lead to solutions. "Racism" isn't a hard problem to solve. 3) You can actually have fun and just might learn something from listening to someone else's experiences. Look through this link to a PDF that better outlines the project and you will see words of support from Barack Obama, Clarence Thomas, Vernon Jordan and many others. 46% of the people who have seen the presentation on Facebook, joined the group!

http://www.otherawarenessproject.com
http://www.otherawarenessproject.com/OAP_mediakit.pdf
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?gid=28769086765 http://www.otherawarenessproject.com/DVD_email.html (less info)